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The Minsk ghetto lasted longer than any other on Soviet territory - more than two years - and was one of the largest in Eastern Europe, with over 80,000 people passing through it. It was established in July 1941 and was comprised of Minsk Jews, Polish refugees, and ca. 7,000 German, Austrian, and Czech Jews. Describes life in the ghetto, based on documents recently made available in Belarus, which include information on forced labor, overcrowding, poor sanitary conditions, starvation, disease, murders, and deportations. The Judenrat members were chosen by the Nazis at random, since Jewish organizations had not functioned for ca. 20 years. The ghetto resistance was formed immediately, and for a time even controlled the Judenrat. The first two Judenrat leaders, Ilya Mushkin and Moisei Yoffe, cooperated with the underground in helping Jews escape to the forests. After a massacre in July 1942 the new members of the Judenrat, "westerners" with a criminal past, collaborated with the Nazis and betrayed the underground. There was much conflict between the Jews of Minsk and the German Jews, who believed they would not suffer the same fate as the natives; however, all of the Jews were deported and killed by fall 1943, when the ghetto was liquidated. (From the Bibliography of the Vidal Sassoon International Center for the Study of Antisemitism - The Hebrew University of Jerusalem)